


Family Time

by lilacsilver



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 06:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3199037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacsilver/pseuds/lilacsilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bucky is kind of a sap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rainne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/gifts).



> Rainne ordered fifty thousand words of kid-fic fluff as penance for the last Wintershock fic I wrote. As you can see, I didn't get that far.

He likes these quiet nights at home best, when no one expects him to be the Winter Soldier. Here, he can just be James Barnes, and do nothing but watch his girls. Four-year-old Stella is curled in Darcy’s lap, learning how to cast on for knitting. Darcy helps her with the first few, but soon enough puts her hands down and lets Stella finish it by herself.

“I did it!” Stella crows. “Papa, look! I did it!”

He smiles. “I see that. What are you gonna make?”

“Scarf for Uncle Steve!”

“He’ll like that,” Darcy says. “Don’t you think, James?”

“He sure will.” Steve flat adores Stella and will wear her first knitting project with pride until she makes him another one.

Stella cheers, and Darcy shows her how to make a knit stitch, and soon the first row is done. James wishes he had a camera to capture his daughter’s look of triumph and Darcy’s proud smile.

Three rows and only one dropped stitch later, Stella yawns and blinks.

“Bedtime for little knitters,” Darcy sing-songs. James gets up and relieves her of Stella, who grudgingly permits him to carry her to the bathroom for teeth-brushing time. (She is not at all fond of this part of her nightly routine, even though her toothpaste and brush are both branded with Uncle Steve’s shield).

After the nightly struggle has ended and Stella emerges with clean teeth and a pout, it’s story time.

“Th’ Princess and the Pea!” she requests. James pulls it off the bookshelf and settles down next to her, and begins to read.

\--

Rare are the mornings that he doesn’t need to attend some briefing or grab his go-bag and head out in Winter Soldier mode. Today he gets to witness Darcy begging Stella to eat her cereal and stop asking for pancakes.

“We don’t have the stuff to make them, honey,” she says for the umpteenth time. “Please just eat the cereal.”

“Pancakes!”

“No.”

It’d be funny if it wasn’t obviously, and rapidly, wearing on Darcy.

“Will you eat it if I tell you we’ll make pancakes tomorrow?” James tries. Stella considers this, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Okay,” she says at last. Crisis averted, he and Darcy can focus on their own breakfast. Darcy seems more interested in her coffee than her scrambled eggs and toast, but then so is he. Stella had made him read _The Princess and the Pea_ five times before she fell asleep and he could get away.

There’s no real need to hurry this morning, since it’s Darcy’s day off. So they don’t. They put in a Disney movie, which Stella largely ignores in favor of working on the scarf, and spend the next couple of hours lazing about.

It’s nice.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Steve is given the scarf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt it was necessary to add a second part. (There will be no part three).

The scarf is finished just as autumn gives way to winter, and they invite Steve over on flimsy pretenses just so Stella can give it to him.

“I made this for you, Uncle Steve!” she informs him, beaming. It’s a little lumpy and uneven in places, besides being incredibly pink and sparkly, but Steve doesn’t appear to mind. He hugs her and puts the scarf on.

“How do I look?”

Darcy suppresses the urge to laugh. James does not.

“Stay right there, punk,” he wheezes between cackles. “I’m gettin’ the camera.”


End file.
